Old business, new business or I fear for the future of Canadian hip-hop: Alias Donmillion v. Reviera Regime

OK, first of all, some old business... last week's winner was Rancid.

Here's the victory vid, "Ruby Soho."


Good shit... now on to some new business.

OK, so, almost every one of these battles has been between two videos that I really enjoy. In fact, there's only been two that haven't been: Lil' Wayne v. She Wants Revenge (where I was a little ambivalent about both bands, although six months later, both acts have grown on me quite a bit) and In Extremo v. TaTu (which was wildly hilarious). This video combines aspects of both those battles.

Let me start by saying that I'm not really that worried about the future of Canadian hip-hop. Kardinal's on the American charts, Famous has a Juno nod, K'Naan looks like he's about two months away from being an international megastar, things are mostly OK. That said, there are a couple causes for concern.

The Main Event

In the Red Corner, from the IDF's Golani brigade, by way of Jane and Finch, the two toughest Jewish gangsters since Bugsy Siegel, RIVIERA REG-IIIME!

Toronto-born Klee Magor and Boston-born Benny Brahmz met while serving in the Israeli army in 1997. According to the lore, the two would freestyle while under fire in South Lebanon. They recorded their first album after getting discharged from the IDF in 1999, but quickly packed it in and headed back to North America after getting pissed off by Israel's weak hip-hop scene.

In 2001, Klee convinced Brahmz to join him in Toronto, and in 2004, they released their second album Thugs of War. A kid was stabbed at their album release party.

In 2005, the Regime met Necro on a trip to NYC. Necro and the Regime got along like a house on fire; they were all violent nihilists, they all liked drugs, and they were all Israeli. Necro got the group signed to his Psycho-Logical Records label. In 2008, they released Real Soldierz Ride. He also got them to join his Jewish rap supergroup Jewish Gangsters.

I'm not going to crack too hard on these guys; they clearly have more gangsta street cred than pretty much anyone else. They've really killed guys as part of the IDF, and really been shot at. My problem isn't that I think they're faking, it's that I think the video is so fucking ham fisted. Hip-hop isn't a genre that thrives on subtlety, but Riviera Regime seem to have neither the creativity to do something indie-filmish and high concept nor the budget to do an all-out bitches and bling ball fest.

This is "Sacrificial Offering," off Real Soldierz Ride.


The Competition

In the blue corner, from Allenbury, a guy who's on Muchmusic, but doesn't make much music, ALIAS DONMILLION!

Alias Donmillion started rapping in 1994. He founded his label, Donmillion Entertainment, and released his first album in 2000, but her really didn't blow up (in relative Canadian terms) until 2006. when he released his album Music Money and released the video for the single "Dirty Dot," which was nominated for an MMVA. Shortly after the MMVAs, he was arrested on a gun charge and spent two years in Kingston Pen.

This is his new video for "Back on the Block."



Here's my basic objection to this video. He spends the whole song telling us that rapping isn't very profitable for him, and that he makes most of his money from narcotics sales.

Here's the thing; I can't decide if Alias is lying about his dope dealing, or if he's just a really bad criminal. If he's lying, or exaggerating, then he would be in good company. (I think most rappers are overstating their criminal pasts.)

If he's not lying, then he's out of his mind. Again, let's get this straight; he's been free for less than a year, and he's already making a video where he confesses to multiple felonies. What the fuck are you doing, dude?

As always, votes due by Friday at midnight, comment to vote.

Reigning Death From Above, DFA's Legacy Lives On

Once again, the votes came down in a decisive manner, with those good Canadian boys DFA totally, totally crushing the pretentious Texan junkies At the Drive-In. This is the video for "Blood on Our Hands." It filmed in a Toronto performance space/booze can. This is probably the most balls-to-the-wall song on an album of balls-to-the-wall songs.

Bands That Were Destroyed by Mainstream Popularity: Death From Above 1979 vs. At the Drive-In

Before we even get started here, I want to make it perfectly clear that this is not an obnoxious "fuck commercial radio" type of post. I have listened to commercial radio in the past, will probably do so in the future, and if I was in a band, I would want Flow or Jack or 102.1 to play my song with every fibre of my being.

That said, sometimes mainstream success is a little too much for some bands. They may not have the personalities to stay level headed when getting money thrown at them, or they may just get to the top and realize they liked it better at the bottom.

Death from Above 1979 and At the Drive-In were two of my favourite bands in university. When they started to get mainstream airplay, I made a conscious effort not to do the indie snob thing and abandon them because other people were listening to them. In retrospect, I probably should have, because both bands imploded within a year of getting popular.

The Main Event

In the red corner, from Toronto, with post break-up projects consisting of MSTRKRFT and Sebastien Grainger and Les Montagnes, DEATH FROM ABOVE 1979!

Jesse F. Keeler and Sebastien Grainger formed Death from Above in 2001. In 2003, they were sued by the DFA record label and were forced to change their name. They added the 1979 for Keeler and Granger's year of birth. In 2004, the release I'm a Woman, You're a Machine, their only full length album. After getting about six months of solid burn from Pitchfork et al. they started to solid play on MuchMusic and MTV. They spent 2005 touring almost non-stop. In August 2006, Keeler posted the following message on the band's website.

"I know its been forever since I wrote anything on here. I'm sure by now most of you assume the band isn't happening anymore since there are no shows, no work on a new album, etc. well. I wanted to let you know that your assumptions are correct. We decided to stop doing the band... Actually we decided that almost a year ago. We finished off our scheduled tour dates because there were good people working for us who relied on us to make a living and buy Christmas presents and pay rent etc. We couldn't just cancel everything and leave them out to dry... Plus I think we wanted to see if we would reconsider after being out on the road. Our label was really hoping that we would change our minds, so they asked us to keep quiet about the decision for at first. Well, it's been quite a while now and we are still very sure the band won't happen again, so I guess it's time to say something."

Shortly after the breakup, Status Ain't Hood's Tom Briehan, who I usually really enjoy, eulogized them as "a band based on being assholes."

I saw them live twice and met them once. They were two of the nicest, most down-to-Earth musicians I'd ever met. They were also one of the loudest, most active live acts I'd ever seen. That's including Rancid, Iron Maiden and Bad Brains. For two guys, they managed to produce an ungodly quantity of sound.

This is the video for "Pull Out." It's two minutes long, it makes me seasick and it's awesome.



The Opponent

In the blue corner, from El Paso, Texas, with post-break up projects consisting of Sparta and The Mars Volta, AT THE DRIIIIVE IN!

At the Drive-In were founded in 1993. They once lied and said they were a polka band to get on local TV. Much like Death from Above 1979, they built their reputation on an energetic live show and heavy touring.

After spending much of the 1990s toiling in the hardcore scene, the band achieved mainstream success in 2000 with the album Relationship of Command and the single "One Armed Scissor."

In 2001, the band started to fracture. Frontman Cedric Bixler-Zavala and guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez wound up getting the bulk of the newfound fame due to their exciting haircuts. Bixler-Zavala and Rodriguez-Lopez wanted to move the band in a more prog-rock direction, while the other three guys, lead by guitarist and co-founder Jim Ward, wanted to keep making Fugazi-esque post hardcore. Finally, Bixler-Zavala and Rodriguez-Lopez had developed massive crack and heroin habits, causing them to fuck up constantly, both on and off stage.

At the 2001 Big Day Out festival, Cedric shouted at the crowd and walked off stage 15 minutes into the band's set. The next month, the band went on "indefinite hiatus." Bixler-Zavala and Rodriguez-Lopez started The Mars Volta and made the sort of obnoxious wank rock they'd always dreamed of making, while Ward, bassist Paul Hinojos and drummer Tony Hajjar started Sparta.

This is the video for "One Armed Scissor." It's just a bunch of live clips, but God damn it's exciting.



OK, post to comment, votes close Friday at Midnight.

BONUS POST: Famous is Killing It Right Now

Hat's up y'all?

(Osama, that was for you.)

OK, so this isn't a battle, but I've been loving this video for the past month or so so I thought I'd put it up here.

Two weeks ago I put up a battle between the Dream Warriors and Maestro Fresh Wes, and I kind of bitched a little on how it's harder to hear Canadian rap now than it was 15 years ago. Rather than just sit around and complain, I thought I'd give a Canadian rapper a dozen eyeballs worth of exposure. (Hey, at least I'm realistic about my level of influence.)

His name's Famous, he "borrowed" the beat from "Black Republicans" and looped it to make a really long song, and he has a killer mystery poster campaign going on right now that you've probably seen but didn't get what you were looking at.

My Definition of a Boombastic Blog Entry: The Dream Warriors Win

OK, I really don't know what down this week, but people really didn't seem to be feeling the battle. Maybe it wasn't my best writing, maybe I didn't plug this week's battle enough, or maybe people just weren't feeling the CanRap concept. I know Sqwd wasn't.

Anyway, we still managed to get some sort of a result, so that's OK. Dream Warriors took it 2 - 1.

And hey, that's all good, the people have spoken. The only problem is that it makes it a little tough for me to post a victory video. Everything after their first album, And Now, The Legacy Begins, was total crap. The original video for "My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style" is impossible to find, to the point where I think I may have hallucinated it, and the second video for that song is pretty pretentious and wretched.

The only thing left for me to do is post the video for "Ludi," the third single off the Legacy album. To be honest, it's my least favourite of the three singles off that album, in part because I thought the idea of a rap song about a board game was pretty weak. I still maintain that position, but listening to the song again, I'm blown away by how catchy it is. As a rap song, it's sort of weak, but re-contextualized as a pop-reggae song, it's damn near perfect.

Golden Era CanRap: Maestro Fresh Wes vs. Dream Warriors

Hey folks, what's happening?

For the record, I really dislike white people who fetishize old school hip-hop. It really weirds me out when people who don't know who the Clipse are ejaculate all over old Run DMC songs and talk about how "they don't make it like that anymore." I don't like vital music genres being reduced to museum pieces, and I really don't like the idea that hip-hop is only good when viewed through the safe lens of nostalgia.

That said, I'm going to be everything I hate for the duration of this post.

For the record, I love a lot of modern Canadian hip-hop. Cadence Weapon may be one of my favourite rappers period right now, More or Les is a friend of mine, Mayhem Moriarty is one of the best lyricists running and Point Blank kind of frighten me, if we're being totally upfront.

The problem is that it's fucking near impossible to hear Canadian hip-hop any more. I don't watch as much MuchMusic as I used to, but when I do, I never see a Canadian hip-hop videos. Radio may be worse. Back when I owned a car, I used to bump Flow pretty regularly while riding in my Topaz. The only Canadian MCs who got any play were fucking Belly and Rochester, and they didn't even get that much. Sadly, it seems as if the Golden Age of Canadian Hip-Hop ended around the same time as the Golden Age of Hip-Hop as a whole.

Back in the early '90s, it seemed like there was half dozen Canadian rap videos in regular rotation on Much at any given time. Not only were the biggies like Maestro, Dream Warriors and Michie Mee getting tons of play, but acts like Ground Control, MRF, Devon, Kish and HDV (now known to Americans as Jacky Jasper) were all over the place, all putting out quality shit.

So what we're going to do here is have two great Canadian rap acts of the early '90s go head-to-head for the right to represent this fine country.

In the blue corner, from Scarborough, Ontario, with an embarrassing career move of "Certs Wid Out Da Retsyn" and a comeback factor of Metropia, Instant Star and a video with Gowan, MAESTRO FRESH WES!

The great thing about being Scarberian is that everyone has a story about knowing one or more of Maestro, Mike Myers, FeFe Dobson, Jamaal Magloire, The Barenaked Ladies, Monika Schnarre, Mike Ricci or Choclair. We're all connected in the almighty East End.

There's really no need for me to paraphrase a Wikipedia bio on this guy. You either know him or you don't. He's Asiatic and he's got the power, from Birchmount, just north of Glendower. As someone whose lame and Caucasian, but from Birchmount, just south of Glendower, I've always felt a real kinship with Maestro. As a result, I'm really happy to see him in the media again, even if it is on crappy Canadian TV shows. I was really worried about him for a while, because if we're being totally honest, there was a period in the mid '90s where he was releasing some real crap.

I was really torn up over which Maestro video to throw into the competition. Obviously "Let Your Backbone Slide" was the biggest hit, but I kind of always thought "Drop the Needle" was a tougher sounding song, plus it samples some '80s CanRock band called Haywire, so it has a little more CanCred. If I'm being really honest, though, my favourite Maestro jam has always been "Conductin' Thangs."

Here's the reasons this video is dope:
1) More punchlines per minute than any other song of it's era.
2) The awesome prohibition-era nightclub motif.
3) Whatever it is Maestro's doing in front of the CN Tower.
4) The tight little ska-sample backbeat.



In the red corner, from Jane and Finch, with a bad career move of everything after the first album and a comeback album of Spek's solo career, The DREE-AM WARRIORS!

If you don't know anything about the Warriors, they were formed in 1988 by King Lou and Capital Q. They played sort of weird, arty, jazz-and-reggae inspired hip-hop and used a lot of slant rhymes in their lyrics. Their first album And the Legacy Begins was actually bigger in the U.K. than they were at home, but pretty well failed to get over at all in the U.S. They had three hits, the most famous of which was "My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style," which had an awesome video and an even better sample of a Quincy Jones song.

Their second album, Subliminal Simulation, dropped in 1994 featured a new MC named Spek and had a single called "Day In Day Out," which was about 1/100th as cool as anything on the first album. Even at age 13, I was hugely underwhelmed. I basically blamed Spek for fucking up Canada's greatest rap group, and when their third album was crap to, I felt justified. Ironically, Spek was the only Dream Warrior to go on to have a solo career.

Unfortunately, YouTube doesn't seem to have the awesome first video for "My Definition," they only have the crappy American one they released when the Warriors signed to 4th and BWay in the States. That's almost criminal, because the first video was so good it was offensive and the 4th and BWay video eats dicks.

As a runner up, I'm putting the video for "Wash Your Face In My Sink" in to rep the Dream Warriors. It's a pretty strong video. I particularly enjoy the 12-sided die and fact that, unlike rap videos of the era, the Sucker MC in this video is very clearly labeled.



You know what to do.